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Bill Turnbull (right), the former BBC Breakfast presenter for 15 years, has revealed he is fighting both prostate and bone cancer, which are at an incurable stage.
Bill, 62, left the breakfast programme just over two years ago, and has since presented programmes on Classic FM as well as the BBC1 gameshow,
Bill Turnbull has admitted he was left in a tearful daze after his doctor broke the news, and he stated he had not visited his GP for four years before having this test which confirmed his diagnosis.
He hopes chemotherapy will control it, and give him as much time as possible with his wife Sarah and their three children, but as he takes part in Stand Up 2 Cancer’s Celebrity Great British Bake Off, at 8pm tonight on Channel 4, he stated: “Those first few days were probably the worst days of my life. That first moment is a real shell shock. You can’t remember the precise words, you just remember the hammer blow. The worst thing is, you carry it through the day and then you go to bed at night and wake up in the morning and it comes to you again. I have got cancer. I’ve still got cancer. It wasn’t a bad dream. And that takes a lot of dealing with. The contract I thought I had with life has been shortened quite a bit.”
After being diagnosed with prostate cancer in November, he has since had keyhole kidney operations, chemo sessions and hormone injections, but sadly, the disease had already spread to his leg bones, pelvis, hips and ribs, although he initially put down the many long-term aches and pains to “old age”, which were no longer having an effect from pills.
He has encouraged other men to get their prostates checked, as have a number of actors in recent times, including Samuel L Jackson, adding “Maybe if I’d got it earlier and stopped it at the prostate, I’d be in a better state.”
We wish Bill Turnbull to be with us for a long time to come, and for now, check out one of my favourite moments on Breakfast, when he had a to-do with Bill Oddie from The Goodies.
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.